April 2025.
I am spinning up to try again to get a publisher for the story of 2003-6 .. (i was offered a book contract 2006 but was too busy actually parenting my child at that time ) however
the last 5 or 6 weeks i have attempted especially to get some interest in essays etc on what i merely call (to my daughter, the only one who really matters to me) 'gender politics'.
Because that is all it is.
I care... apart from anything else 'gender politics' has utterly ruined the Green movement that for especially the last 10 years i myself re-entered almost full time (much earlier knowledge of from the 70s and involvement in 1990s ) ...on behalf of my daughter's generation.
Gender politics utterly blights simple Green lobbying and causes terrible problems obtaining the necessary 'solidarity' I write a lot about this here and there...
(there is so so much of the "you cannot say that" and all associated oversensitivities whereby it often seems that Greens are more at war with one another - especially if different sexes, than the actual enemy, the polluters.
this stand alone page
https://www.simonclayton2020.com/p/woman.html
has been here a while in fact - cloaked until now, by invite only, and is called wo/man
a first draft riff on matters between the sexes i know few dare even touch upon.
Never mind a summary of just how i myself dedicated every minute of a decade to giving my own kids as much real 'experience' of humanity as possible....despite living often on absolutely nothing in the bank...
These last few months we have had societal overload on 'masculinity' - the "lost boys"
Here are two segments on radio 4 Today program 17th MArch 2025 including the famous Gareth Southgate speech about crisis in the world of young men
two audio files in my google filestore
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dfpkHkeneJYmuE8_nYQELpQeTIu0zP-I?usp=sharing
THERE IS MORE TO GO IN - some more useful clips...this is just a first quickest last gasp draft.
These sorts of increasingly hysterical 'expert' men polemics only exasperate me..
Although they mean well and even include lines like "being a physical presence in the room" and "present in the lives of our boys"
they miss THE bigger real issues - two: firstly yes TIME... however, my whole adult life but especially the last 10 or so years ALL i see and hear (speaking with parents of both sexes about family issues) is they have no time.... they are endlessly frazzled and even suffering sleep issues - not much good when they do have time...
This comes ONLY from one cause- the rat race.... the explosion in needs to define oneself through expensive consumer items, from the 'compulsory' 500 quid new fangled pram to the status motor car you even see all over the 'working class' backstreets.
It is impossible to chase Mammon, and also have the one-to-one time children need from very early on, always...
This was well and truly covered in Oliver JAmes wonderful book Affluenza in the mid 10s ... and simply put that bpook is summarised in apart from so many parents even then lost to consumerism etc., we ALL knew - as did the expert class, that leaving a child at home (BOTH parents sharing in childcare) until 5 years old as minimum - its more likely 6 in much of Europe...is psychologically far better for the child longterm...
But what has happened in the last 20 years? .. on average children were put into full time primary school around 4 1/2 going on 5 ..or daycare a year or so earlier...
nowadays 95% of parents (and their peers) one hears speaking of their plans they are DESPERATE to get them into school from about the first week they legally can - i think thats at their 4th birthday....and into nursery from under 1 year old
It became the absurd gerrymandering vote grabber of every labour candidate in each of the last few elections " we will give you 15 / 30 hours per week ..whatever...free guaranteed nursery care from ... " i think it is a year old now..
this is madness.
It is impossible to chase MAmmon, and also have the one-to-one time children need from very early on, always......
I know as i chose to do the latter...only. All else was left behind... i didn't care if i had a £300 banger (as we did) because i put the (earning) time ONLY into my daughter.
She came to the planet as computers were taking off. She would be 'allowed' an hour in the morning.... on a computer. Using it usefully...
She never ever once moaned later on ion the day or evening that she wanted to be on the little machine BECAUSE she had had usually most of the day (prior to fiveish) and after school (5-11) so much physical tiring fun or useful actiuvity either with her dad or set up and put in place by dad (e.g. many animals - we had virtually a zoo in our garden) she was by teatime always so tired out in a good way...both of us were good for little else than a bit of a dvd - intelligent movies, a few pages of a book....and off we pop to the land of z
Secondly, all this 'menshed' mentoring... and i write this as someone a man who i know has put more of my last 25 year 100% into being there (or fixing after she was unlawfully stolen off) as a father...every day for 25 years most of my mental energy (still) is dedicated to the best for my one child
. .. so all the menshed mentoring...footie coach friend (often 'paid friends') is to me absolute bullshit. For young people it is just as much and probably MORE important they are equally 'mentored' by females - mother, sister, schoolfriend.... certainly as they get into the second part of their teens....i know it 'saved my life' the girls at my ordinary comprehensive school civilising me... a bit, at least.... which continued into my 20s...
In fact the really great influences one may find (in my life at the humble end of society) in ones twenties if one is lucky are THE most important 'civilising' fact or of all on younger men. Full stop.
To me 'feminism' is remiss unless it includes and vociferously reminds society at large of that role - a responsibility indeed...
